II.—­The Plague

July 31, 1665. I ended this month with the greatest joy that I ever did any in my life, because I have spent the greatest part of it with abundance of joy, and honour, and pleasant journeys, and brave entertainments, and without cost of money.  We end this month after the greatest glut of content that ever I had, only under some difficulty because of the plague, which grows mightily upon us, the last week being about 1,700 or 1,800 of the plague.  My Lord Sandwich at sea with a fleet of about one hundred sail, to the northward, expecting De Ruyter, or the Dutch East India fleet.

August 8. To my office a little, and then to the Duke of Albemarle’s about some business.  The streets empty all the way now, even in London, which is a sad sight.  To Westminster Hall, where talking, hearing very sad stories.  So home through the City again, wishing I may have taken no ill in going; but I will go, I think, no more thither.  The news of De Ruyter’s coming home is certain, and told to the great disadvantage of our fleet; but it cannot be helped.

August 10. To the office, where we sat all morning; in great trouble to see the bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, and of them above 3,000 of the plague.  Home to draw over anew my will, which I had bound myself by oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town growing so unhealthy that a man cannot depend upon living two days.

August 12. The people die so that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do it in.  And my lord mayor commands people to be within at nine at night, that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for air.  There is one also dead out of one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles us mightily.  I am told, too, that a wife of one of the grooms at court is dead at Salisbury, so that the king and queen are speedily to be all gone to Milton.  So God preserve us!

August 16. To the Exchange, where I have not been in a great while.  But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the ’Change.  Jealous of every door that one sees shut up lest it should be the plague; and about two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.

August 22. I walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein, dead of the plague, which was carried out last night, and the parish have not appointed anybody to bury it; but only set a watch there all day and night, that nobody should go thither or come thence, this disease making us more cruel to one another than we are to dogs.

August 25. This day I am told that Dr. Burnett, my physician, is this morning dead of the plague, which is strange, his man dying so long ago, and his house this month open again.  Now himself dead.  Poor, unfortunate man!

August 30. I went forth and walked towards Moorfields to see (God forgive my presumption!) whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave.  But, Lord! how everybody looks, and discourse in the street is of death and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.